Review by Cthulhu

I am writing this after using PowerDVD (ultra) for about 2 weeks, meaning that I have a pretty good idea of what it can do and how well it does it and whether it’s something that I feel I need or I am going to keep on using. It’s also possible that some of my first impressions may change overtime in which case I am going to come back to this review and update it.

WHAT IS IT GOOD FOR (and what not)nnI am likely to keep using PowerDVD on my laptop to:nn- Watch DVDs discsn- Watch Blu-ray discsn- Watch movies and videos off our media servers (DLNA)nnThe following features, while present, are either of no interest to me or don’t work as I would expect them to work and I will not use:nn- Anything ‘online’n– the Youtube player accessed through a browser is superiorn– the ‘Movies’ feature found under ‘Media Library’ is just advertising and trailers spam and I don’t need that, thank you very muchnn- Any of the badly implemented or redundant featuresn– PowerDVD remote apps, or at least the one available for Android can’t find the main PowerDVD I installed on my laptop (Windows 7, 64-bit)n– PowerDVD mobile apps, or at least the one available for Android can’t find the main PowerDVD I installed on my laptop (Windows 7, 64-bit)n– anything having to do with ‘photos’ because there are much better appsn– anything having to do with ‘music’ because there are much better appsn– ‘Playlists’ because they are awkwardly implemented and it’s difficult to add items in bulk and/or import existingnn- Any of the gee-whiz features such as:n– the ability to render normal video as 3D videon– super-high resolution support that’s not likely to be available on a monitor connected to my laptop in the foreseeable futurennMY EXPERIENCEnnThe software was easy to install and it installed relatively quickly. I wasn’t sure whether I wanted to keep it on the computer where the initial installation took place so I tried to install while offline. After I entered the key, the program told me that it was fine that I will be able to use it without online validation for 30 days (nice). Sadly, as soon as I started the program while online, the program ‘validated’ itself so I can’t move it elsewhere unless I talk to ‘customer support’, or so the customer support person told me.

Speaking of which, getting tech support does not seem to be that easy. I couldn’t get that far through the site’s Byzantine menu trees but it appears that any support beyond the most basic topics (installation or, in my case, transfer to another PC) requires the customer to pay some more if a human technician is needed. The alternative is exploring that ‘free’ FAQ sections which, in my case, didn’t have the information I was seeking and appears to be too generic to be worth much.

Once installed - and I am happy to report that no spyware or carpware was forced upon my laptop - the program ran well, it never crashed while playing a disc or a file and was responsive to controls for the features that actually worked (see my notes above concerning the ‘remote’ and ‘mobile’ apps.

Playing movies is the main and in most cases the only reason one would buy PowerDVD and it plays movies and home videos well. The program supports about a million file formats and adds some nice features that can enhance the viewing experience:nn- there is a set of ‘TrueTheater’ controls concerning the video and audio quality meant to improve the quality of non-HD contentn- it’s easy to zoom if you prefer to have more of your screen to be filledn- there is volume controln- has a 3D button that will instantly turn any movie into something you can watch with 3D glasses (a gimmick you’ll get tired of after 30 seconds but it’s there nevertheless)n- ability to set languages, subtitles and bookmarksnnOverall, movie and video playing is near-flawless if the app can actually get to the source.

PowerDVD will play anything off:nn- your computer’s integrated optical drive, whether it’s a DVD or a Blu-ray driven- an external optical driven- your computer internal HDD or any external HDDn- a network drive that your computer connects ton- a DLNA server if it can find itnnOf course, bandwidth can become an issue when accessing remote sources. I had no issues playing DVD-quality movies off a DLNA server accessed over Wi-Fi or Blu-ray quality media off an external USB 3.0 HDD. Worth to note that it sometimes required a rescan to discover some of my DLNA servers and at least one of them (our PS3) was never detected even though other apps do see it.

Attempting to use PowerDVD for anything other than ‘video’ was part of my experience but I quickly realized that, as much as the developers tried to expand into other types of media, this version of their product did not persuade me to take advantage of those features, not when it’s so easy to get to YouTube from a browser window and there are superior interfaces for photo viewing and organizing.

MY RATINGnnPowerDVD gets high marks for its ability to play movies and videos and play them well from practically any source and in almost any known format. Some of the ‘frills’, especially its ability to interact with the ‘remote’ and ‘mobile’ Android apps did not work for me but mine could be a special case. Sadly, I will probably never know because getting the PowerDVD ‘mobile’ or ‘remote’ to run was not worth paying CyberLink’s tech support for actually supporting their app.

I am not likely to ever use PowerDVD to play or organize or interact in any way with the ‘other’ types of media because there are vastly better alternatives out there. I wish I could say that it was ‘nice’ that PowerDVD supports ‘photos’ and allows me to watch YouTube but the truth is that I don’t care and I never will.

I didn’t like and I don’t appreciate CyberLink’s customer support scheme. Once users pay for the product (and, yes, the license does state that the product is never ‘yours’ and the money you gave them only grants you the privilege to access and use CyberLync’s property at their discretion) they should expect some decent level of support without being asked to pay more. Support should be about dealing with the product issues and shortcomings, not running a customer nickel and diming profit center.

These being said, my rating subtracts 1 star for disappointing ‘support’ and another 0.5 star for the unneeded features that add bulk to the software and unnecessarily complicate the program’s controls and menu trees. Another 0.25 star is subtracted for the not so flawless DLNA support and for the Android apps not working, coming down to the grand total of 3.25 stars, fairly rounded down to 3.